Separating the segment from YIT and building a stand alone setup with no business interruptions
YIT sold its Paving and Mineral Aggregates business segment in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark to Peab. Closing the deal was waiting for EU competition authority approval and the sale was expected to be closed by end of the year and the above business to start as part of Peab on January 1st 2020. The aim was to separate the segment from YIT and build a set up that operates as a stand alone in all the countries from January 1st 2020 onwards. This was expected to cause no business interruption in the remaining business operations. As part of the project team, business lines and support functions were represented in the working streams (for example HR, IT, Finance, procurement, communications, premises, legal, etc.). The project team consisted of close to 190 internals and 42 suppliers for IT work. The overall IT landscape consisted of 185 applications and systems with over 100 integrations.
Midagon's role involved project management activities, weekly reporting to YIT's management team, cost follow up and reporting, cutover management for 2/3 rounds, TSA process validation and data responsibility management process post Day 1 as well as organizing and leading workshops (buyer side initial knowledge sharing sessions and internal PI planning sessions with up to 90 people participating in person). Due to the extended schedule, Midagon's consultant also worked as PM for an Intranet project for the separated segment, searched for new premises for asphalt laboratory and move preparation and took care of general SharePoint site management. The main impact and input was on the scheduling (and re-scheduling) of the activities, scope clarifications, keeping the team well informed on the target dates and the approach of doing the work in phases. Another important aspect was keeping the momentum on difficult times and supporting all vendor management activities.
Due to the EU competition authority's approval delay of more than three months from the initial target date, heavy re-planning was required along the way. The authority approval was obtained on March 27th and Closing and Day 1 took place April 1st. With a phased approach to Day 1, all three phases were delivered precisely according to the plan, with no business interruptions and 10% under budget. On Day 1 all four countries were independently running in their stand alone set ups under new Peab domains and rebranding activities had started (the majority was done within the first 30 days). All identified cutover activities were completed within two days after the deal was signed. The project team won YIT's star award in February in the categories of Respect and Passion for the work delivered in 2019.
